We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Research and Questions

Can you form questions on a single topic that could be provided to you? Lets say, "road".

Basics of research could be learned by asking the right kind of questions. Why does a doctor asks so many questions to you when you visit him for a certain ailment? Because he is trying to judge what the possible cause could be, by trying to map the answers you give to the amount of knowledge/ experience he has accumulated over a period of time. Why does experience matter? Because experience thus lets you witness lot of cases. So, lots of questions are asked. Many times these question asking exercise seems a lot frustrating specifically for the people, who are not used to think critically, because the responses they provide thus could vary depending on time, and circumstances. A critical thinking person would provide consistent response in different situations, trying to map and analyze situation. So a lawyer asks lot of questions in different stages in different circumstances just to see, how much critical you are in your thinking.

Right to information act (RIT) allows a common man to question the procedures and seek information from governance related work. Asking questions of the right kind is an extremely effective tool in maintaining transparency in procedures, because again, if there is any discrepancy in the answer, it implies that, a correct procedure is not followed and depending on the laws of country, the governing body could be sued in the legal ways.

So, asking questions is an important aspect of our day to day life. Ever wondered, why you brush your teeth in a particular way only. Most of us think brushing teeth is an mundane activity which just gets done automatically as a habit. But if you think, it involves lot of things, if you do not provide correct attention while brushing, you might not brush teeth properly and might damage them in the long run. If you do not use the correct toothbrush, you might hurt tissues in your mouth. If you do not use correct sodium content in your toothpaste, you might deplete the tooth enamel in the long run. So, there is lot of thought that goes behind brushing. Well, there are tons of activities that we do daily in our life, which could be improved for our own benefits by paying a little more attention and being in presence, and asking the question, Is what I am doing a correct way of doing it? Could there be a better way?

And I guess by paying such attention one can reduce the extra money which people tend to pay for recovering from different type of pains, which come in the longer run, if enough attention is not paid at right time. Well, I strongly believe, people just are so unaware of so many things, that they just do not want to test their brains ability and learn new things.

Asking question is thus an integral part of a rich education experience, which in turn keeps us fit, healthy and peaceful for a long duration. Forming simple questions is relatively easy, but when the simple questions end, finding complex questions is an intense rigorous activity and chances are that your brain will hurt. Integrating all knowledge to ask questions and come up with an analysis is an extremely complex task, which not many can do. Brain hurting is awesome. Why? Because first it proves that you definitely have a brain. Second, when brain hurts for the right reason, right amount of new neurons integration happens inside brain, which activates your brain to be more sharp. So if you hurt your brain in the right amount for a considerable time, chances are that you will find yourself more clever. Isn't it great?

Ignorance is definitely not bliss according to me. More knowledge might bring more pain in terms of realization of working of different aspects of life, and why it happens the way it happens. But once that pain eases, there is tremendous composure in terms of finding the answers to the right questions, which is an extremely worthy process and gives a feeling of certain accomplishment. And feeling accomplished is an important aspect of human existence as that gives a person his identity.

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About Me

Hi. I am a PhD student at Centrum Wiskunde Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam.
I was a master's student at Jack Baskin School of Engineering, in Computer Science department, at University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.
My research interests are in technology aware socio-economic research and multicore query parallelization in database systems and systems in general.
Thank you for your time visiting my site.